


every day is a crossroads

by DreamerWisherLiar



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Espionage, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-24 23:35:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16185548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamerWisherLiar/pseuds/DreamerWisherLiar
Summary: Three years after the crossroads, Athos gets another chance.





	every day is a crossroads

**Author's Note:**

> Someday, I'm going to stop writing about these angsty idiots. I'm sure of it. Until then, have the - I think third? - AU from the end of S2 I've written.

Athos is exhausted. His friends are away escorting a messenger to the main encampment, which doesn’t help, but mostly it’s the relentless drag of his duty – recruiting, training, organizing, sending half-trained men off and not knowing if they’ll come back. He’s fighting a war he doesn’t believe in at the behest of a King he doesn’t respect, and he’s not even fighting from the front lines. His job seems to be half politics, even with Treville as a shield against it, and sometimes he’s sick with longing for the days when he had a sword in his hand and an enemy in front of him, the days where he rode out with his friends to investigate and solve problems instead of sitting behind a desk. He drinks as much wine as ever, but he has fewer hours free to drink, so he drinks faster to make up for it, and pretends his ever-present hangover is the reason for his restlessness, depression and loneliness. He pretends his tiredness is purely of the body, and not of the soul as well. Today has been especially hard, for a number of small, petty reasons, starting with the King’s latest bright idea of allowing favoured nobles to request Musketeer honour guards whenever they like.

But when the Minister of War calls, the Captain of the Musketeers must answer. And so despite his long day, his sore muscles, the exhaustion dragging him down, when Athos receives the message he goes immediately to the Louvre. He hopes to God that this isn’t another conversation about being more tactful when speaking to His Majesty (hypocritical advice coming from Treville, but the man’s becoming more of a politician by the month). He hopes, in fact, that it will be something that matters.

It is.

X_X_X_X_X

He enters Treville’s office and stumbles, nearly falling. He stares. His breath is forced out of his lungs by the shock. His heart stops. The world spins away and disappears. Everything smells of jasmine, and all he can see is the green of her eyes, and the taste in his mouth can be nothing but the memory of the last time he kissed her.

The sight of her leaves him winded, but then it’s always been that way. He remembers the very first time he saw her, young and lovely and glowing in a white dress in the sunlight; remembers the way he lost his ability to speak, lost his mind, lost his breath, lost his heart and soul to her in moments; the way he never quite managed to get any of them back. She stole everything he had, and everything he was, and everything he hoped for, and then she stole herself away as well – and now she stands before him once more, the greatest thief he’s ever known, and God, he’s missed her more than words could ever say.

“Hello, Athos,” she says, red lips curving in a nonchalant smile. “How long’s it been?”

“Three years,” he says, voice a croak, and _three years, two months, and eighteen days_ , his mind supplies. Well, that long since the crossroads: three years, two months, and twenty days since he last saw her, hair loose, lips trembling, voice raw with emotion as she asked him to come with her to England. Compared to that woman, this one is made of ice and unconcern, with her elegant dress encasing her like armour, geometrically precise chignon of hair, and expression of utter disinterest in him. If seeing him after so long has an effect on her, he’s unable to discern it in her expression or demeanor.

Not a single one of those days has passed without him thinking of her. Not a single waking hour has passed, in fact. As always, her absence seems to occupy as much space in his life as her presence.

Treville is in the room as well, sitting behind his desk, just as Athos expected. However, he so entirely didn’t expect his wife that he doesn’t even realize Treville is there until the other man clears his throat.

“Milady de Winter has returned here at my request, to do us a favour,” Treville says, voice warning. Athos manages to tear his eyes away from his wife and realizes Treville is trying to forestall some kind of explosion from him. Does he feel guilt for that day long ago, reminding Athos of his duty, the duty that was more important than his happiness? Probably not. France will always come first for Treville.

Milady raises her eyebrows, amused, attention returning entirely to Treville for the moment. He feels the loss of her smile, however indifferent it seemed. “To do you a favour? Is that really the correct term?”

“To complete a well-paid mission?”

“That’s more like it.” Treville dealt with, she turns and glances back over at Athos again, tipping her head to the side and crossing her arms as she studies him dispassionately, waiting for whatever his response will be to this. Not a single curl falls out of place as she does this, and Athos has a sudden, mad urge to ruin her hair with his fingers, to disrupt the smooth, impenetrable perfection of her. He contains himself. He doesn’t even move closer, although every muscle in his body strains to.

“What’s so important you had to send for her all the way from England?” he asks roughly. He is absurdly conscious of her, whereas she shows no sign of being put off balance by him at all. It’s maddening. His heartbeat is so loud in his ears he’s amazed he can hear a thing.

“There was Spanish envoy sent to enter into secret talks with the English. If we could interrogate him, the intelligence he could give about troop movements, plans and the diplomatic situation is vital. Not to mention the chance to disrupt their talks and perhaps cause them to fail immediately. None of my men could get close.” Treville looks faintly irritated by this, but only faintly. “Since I’d recently heard that Milady -” He stops, hesitates.

“Has far better skills than all your men put together?” Milady suggests. She’s still smiling, but there’s that faint edge to her voice that spells out a warning to Treville.

Whatever Treville was going to say originally, he swallows it, continues. “Well, it seemed worth reaching out. And it was. She’s managed to get the man.”

“I left him in Le Havre, in the care of the captain of that ship you recommended,” Milady says, with a faint, dismissive gesture. “I would have brought him all the way here, but I suspect the roads may not be safe enough and I’d hate to lose such a valuable prize.”

Neither of them bother to comment on her safety travelling here – if she’s not towing a resistant captive, there’s no doubt Milady de Winter can take care of herself. Still, Athos doesn’t like it.

Treville nods. “Wise. Athos, I want you to choose your best men to accompany her there and back with the captive.” His voice is apologetic as he adds, “And given the importance of this – I would like you to lead them. You’ll leave tomorrow.”

Athos stares at him. He doesn’t know if this is a cruelty or a blessing.

“And I suppose I have to come back to Paris with him for my payment instead of simply receiving it now, because you want to make sure that I’ve captured the envoy instead of simply abducting a random Spaniard,” Milady says in a bored tone.

“You suppose correctly,” Treville says.

“Wise.” She echoes his earlier compliment with a faint air of mockery. 

After going through a few more details, Treville dismisses them both, and Milady sweeps out of the room in a rustle of expensive cloth. Treville says Athos’s name, trying to call him back – to apologize or to give some kind of warning, perhaps – but this time Athos doesn’t pause. He catches up with her halfway down to the hall.

He reaches out to catch her arm but she steps to the side and nimbly evades his touch, as if she thinks it will burn her. It’s probably for the best – he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he touches her, after all this time, thinks he would feel the shock of it clear to his toes, thinks he would lose himself all over again. But he wishes he could have touched her anyway. Nevertheless, she stops and turns to face him, raising an eyebrow at him in mute query.

There are so many things he should say. So many questions he needs to ask her. He wants to know how she’s spent every day since he last saw her, if she ever thinks of him as he thinks of her, if she regrets leaving the crossroads before he arrived, wants to know what prompted her to do so. Instead, the question that rises to his lips is “What was Treville going to say before he stopped himself?”

“Oh,” she says. She considers for a few seconds, then says, voice as sharp and cool as a blade, “I expect he was going to say that he’d heard of the recent death of my husband, and thought I might need a new source of income.”

For a moment, he’s only confused, opening his mouth to say _but I’m your husband_ , but then comprehension and pain strike at the same moment. 

She studies him, quite unmoved by whatever shows on his face. Then she says, “I will see you tomorrow, then,” and is gone before he’s recovered enough to speak his thoughts.

He thinks he may still be in shock, his body and mind moving slowly. He should try to catch her arm again as she stalks away, ask more questions, demand to know how she could marry again, ask which marriage is legal or if either is, ask whether she’d loved her new husband. Whether she still loves him as well. He should try to come up with the right words to say to explain everything to her, to apologize, to somehow coax out the woman who’d looked up at him with her heart in her eyes and asked who else knew them like they knew each other. Except that he’s never managed to come up with the right words to say to her. Maybe he could just hand her the glove, explain like that.

Years of believing he would never see her again have left him as unprepared for this meeting as he was when she showed up in his burning house all those years ago. He’s soberer now than he was then, and that should make it easier, but that just means most of the stupid things he comes up with to say stay locked up in his mind instead of tripping off his tongue without permission.

X_X_X_X_X

She surveys the assembled Musketeers with a sense of deep foreboding. Somehow, despite being clad in normal garb, they still give off the impression of wearing blue cloaks and fleur de lis. It’s as if they have Musketeer inked on every inch of skin. Since they are trying to look like normal travelers instead of servants of the crown, this is not ideal.

“Do you not consider your three friends to be among the best?” she asks Athos, keeping her tone light and indifferent. He’s clad the same as the others, no sign of the Musketeer in his outfit, but no one could look at his stance and bearing and see anything but a professional soldier. She wonders if he has a new uniform now he’s a Captain, one as gilded and fancy as Treville’s breastplate – wonders if she’ll get the chance to see it before she leaves for England. How he must hate it, if he does.

But then, he looks like he hates most things at the moment. He’s suffering from having been too much in his cups the night before, it’s obvious in both his complexion and his expression. Hardly the behavior of a respected captain before an important mission. “Aramis has resigned his commission and Porthos and d’Artagnan are dealing with an issue to the north.”

“Then I suppose these will have to do.” She doesn’t bother to hide the disapproval in her gaze as she looks at them. She reaches for her horse and gives him a meaningful look, and he helps her into the saddle with an almost soundless sigh. His hands burn her through the simple riding gown, but worse than that is the flood of memories that leave her flushed and wanting, and hating herself for her own reaction. She covers it by saying snidely, “With such gallant heroes about, who’d fear bandits?”

“You must be wishing you’d simply dragged him here yourself, then, if our protection is so lacking,” he says, a flush burning his cheeks as well, though she doesn’t know if it’s the closeness or her insult.

“Just as you must be wishing you hadn’t obeyed Treville’s summons last night,” she replies, hiding her bitterness as best she can. “If it’s any comfort, you’re not the only one. I thought he would give me a purse to hire protection. I didn’t ask for you to be involved in my affairs, Athos – not this time, anyway. I fully intended to keep my promise.” 

“Was it a promise? I thought it was a threat,” he says, looking back at her as he mounts his own horse. There’s a raw edge to his voice, and it makes her uncomfortable, makes her want to look away, makes her want to urge her horse into a gallop and flee. “An ultimatum, in fact. Either give up everything and come with you, or I would never see you again. No other choice, no compromise, no middle ground. Wasn’t that what you meant?”

“Well, that’s what I said, certainly, and I do hate to make empty threats,” she remarks, giving a light shrug, trying not to be stung by the word ‘everything’. She should have known that his lingering feelings for her meant nothing compared to his duty and his friends, that he would never give them up for her sake, but that doesn’t mean it’s pleasant to be reminded. “And yet, here you are, and here I am, brought together again. The world has strange sense of humour, doesn’t it?” Or Treville does, at least.

This time, she does urge her horse to speed, avoiding any answer he might make. The Musketeers rush to try and keep pace with her.

X_X_X_X_X

Her husband – her first husband – watches her throughout the day. For the first hour, it’s merely irritating, making the back of her neck burn, and she takes a smug satisfaction in knowing that some part of him is still obsessed with her. By the third, it’s actively uncomfortable. She can feel the heat rising from her face in response. She fidgets, she fusses, she adjusts her seat multiple times, she tries to breathe normally.

Eventually, she slows her horse to be level with his, and snaps, “What’s with all the staring, Athos? Trying to get an idea what style of dresses are a la mode in England at present? I don’t think they’d suit you.”

He blinks at her, surprised. Apparently he did not realize that she could feel his gaze without even turning around. A nearby Musketeer makes a choked noise that could be horror or laughter.

“I apologize if I was being impolite,” he finally says, voice low and smooth and entirely too distracting. When he speaks like that, he sounds like the cultured noble he was once, a long time ago, when he was with her.

“You should and you were.” She spurs her horse forward again, already missing the weight of his eyes on her.

X_X_X_X_X

On Athos’s order, they camp out for the nights. They could stay in inns for the way to Le Havre, of course, when they don’t have a captive, but so long as they need to bring tents and supplies for the way back anyway it seems pointless. They won’t risk more people seeing their prisoner, asking questions – it’s better the English and Spanish have no way to discover where the envoy has gone. Better they’re confused.

As a high-born lady – and apparently she is now legally recognized as a high-born lady once more, never mind the facts of the matter – it’s a little inappropriate for Milady to eat with common Musketeers. But then, Milady de Winter has never minded crossing lines. When she was maître-en-titre she did a number of things he’s sure no one else in that position has ever done, including assassinating an ambassador. When she was a Comtesse, she ran through the fields in thin white cloth, scandalizing his family and the villagers but delighting him. Now that she’s apparently an English Baroness, she travels and camps with Musketeers without any kind of chaperone.

She sits with him by the fire the first night, gnawing at her dinner, apparently unbothered by the contrast between her expensive dress and toilette and her non-existent table manners. The other Musketeers are by the larger fire they’ve built, deciding to leave their commanding officer to entertain the Baroness. It’s not due to respecting the distinction of rank, though – it’s that most of them have felt the sharp side of her tongue more than once today, and have no desire to feel it again.

“A Baroness,” he says, trying out the word in his mouth. It doesn’t suit her the way Comtesse did, but then, few things do. “You’re a Baroness now?”

“Baroness Sheffield,” she says, but then shrugs. “Though I suppose, given our long acquaintance, you might also get away with calling me Charlotte.”

It took long enough to get used to ‘Milady’ – he’ll never adjust to ‘Charlotte’. It crosses his mind that he doesn’t want to think of her as Charlotte Sheffield, because Charlotte Sheffield was someone else’s wife. “Was the Baron… was he… was he a good man?”

“Good enough.” She looks at the fire instead of him. “Not as social as I would have liked, especially not by the end, and a bit dull in bed, but he was harmless and undemanding.” 

It’s a very callous way to talk about a dead spouse, but it doesn’t bother him as much as it should. It certainly doesn’t bother him as much as the reference to sleeping with him. He’d known it could hardly be a chaste marriage, but that doesn’t mean he wants to think about it. Still, he feels a flash of guilty relief that she doesn’t seem to have loved the man, not even slightly. “What did he die of?”

“Trying to figure out if I’ve been up to my old tricks?” Her smile gleams even in this half-darkness. “He died of old age, Athos. Also, I had no motive. It would be like killing the goose that laid the golden egg.” 

“He didn’t leave you anything?”

“He left me a jointure, but most of his wealth went to his son from an earlier marriage, and living at court is expensive. So when Treville sent word, I thought – well, why not. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to play in larger games.”

“I thought you said you were planning to leave that life behind,” he says slowly. As a result, when he’s pictured her these past years, it’s been difficult to imagine what she’s doing. Her last words about wanting to be like she was back then have made him often picture her laughing, running through an English meadow somewhere, magically happy and carefree again. He’d known that wasn’t real, but it had been the only image he wanted – he didn’t want to picture her back in any of her old lines of work, killing, selling herself, stealing, spying, hurting people. Or married again. He never wanted to picture that, either. 

“No, I said I was sick of lying, cheating, and killing without conscience. I haven’t cheated or killed anyone in this case, and for that matter, I barely had to lie,” she says coolly. “I told him to come with me for a night he wouldn’t forget. I believe I kept to the letter of my word, if not the intent. You’d think an envoy from Spain would be more cautious, wouldn’t you?”

“So you didn’t actually -” he begins, well aware this is a conversational path he should not go down, and pursuing it anyway. Old habits die hard, apparently.

“I had to win his trust _somehow_ ,” she says reasonably. “But there’s only so much you can do in the shadowy corners of court – especially in the English court, what with all the emphasis on propriety and decorum. Sooner or later, even the most tireless and lustiest of men wants a bed. And when I said I had an empty one nearby – well. When a man stops thinking with his head, he’s easy prey.”

That’s why he’s always forced his mind to stay in control when he deals with her. His body, his heart and his soul may all be in turmoil, but so long as he stops them from determining his actions, he’s safe. For example, right now he would like to yell at her, insult her, shake her, kiss her, hold her close. He does none of those things. Instead, he sits and stares into the fire like it will give him all the answers.

She stands to leave, finished with her meal, casting the stripped bone into the dying fire and standing up.

“Did your husband know about me?” Athos blurts out, not sure why he is asking. He’s slightly proud of himself for getting through this conversation without throwing the word ‘bigamy’ at her. It’s been on the tip of his tongue since she told him. He doesn’t know if either marriage was legal, since she undoubtedly committed fraud and used a fake name for both, but he’s always seen their marriage as real in the sight of God at least. Maybe she never considered it real, maybe she decided the execution was the end of their marriage, or maybe she simply doesn’t care what God makes of her behavior – any of those are possible. But it hurts him.

“He knew I’d been married before, yes.” Again, her tone is cool, almost impersonal, as if talking to a stranger. “I just told him my husband had died years before. It’s close enough to true, isn’t it?”

He flinches, but she’s gone, so she can’t see it.

X_X_X_X_X

She looks at people in the street as they pass through Rouen, and he thinks she’s looking for threats until she says, “In English terms, I’m on the cutting edge of fashion, you know. But in France I’m quite behind. Staid. Even boring.”

As if she could ever be boring.

“You should come back more often, then, to keep up with the style,” he says gruffly, trying not to show how badly he wants her to come back. How badly he wants for her never to have left at all. 

“How gracious, Athos,” she says. “When you’re the one who wanted me gone in the first place.”

X_X_X_X_X

“You can’t really believe I wanted you _gone_.” He brings it up again suddenly that night, after several hours of brooding silence. He’s a few bottles down and the other Musketeers are restless and concerned as they watch from a distance, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “Not by the end.”

She stares at him, surprised. “I never knew what you wanted, Athos, not for sure,” she says, honestly. She could never tell with him, that was the problem – sometimes she thought he still loved her, other times she thought he’d be relieved to be rid of her, and then there were the times when both seem to be true at once. And now he keeps shooting her these strange looks, searching for something.

They’re sitting by the fire together once more, but tonight they’re sharing a log as a seat, so they’ve been within touching distance of each other since they stopped for the night. It makes her tense, all too aware of how much space is left between them – it’s not enough distance, and it’s too much, both at once. She’s been fighting the temptation to snatch one of his bottles of wine so she can at least fill the long silence with alcohol, and now he’s speaking again, and that temptation only worsens.

“You know me better than anyone, isn’t that what you said?” he persists.

“And so it was my responsibility to read your mind?” Anger covers up the hurt now. “No, I didn’t know what you wanted. Because you never told me. You set me at a distance. If you protected me, you said it was for France or the King. If you spent time with me, you acted like it was forced upon you by circumstance or duty. When I asked what you wanted, you told me it was none of your concern, you said I was free to do as I pleased, that you didn’t care!”

“I never said I did not care.” He looks like a child who’s being chastised, half guilty, half mulishly defensive. He tries to turn his head away from her, but she grabs his chin with hard fingers, forcing him to face her again. The bristles of his beard rasp against her palm. From the corner of her eye she can see some of their Musketeer guard stir, wondering whether to intervene, but she ignores them to focus entirely on their captain.

“No, I’m still talking. You’re doing it again now, saying nothing, admitting nothing, sharing nothing. Just like you did back then. If you didn’t want me gone, what did you want from me? What do you want now? Stop dissembling.”

She thinks she’s probably a fool to bring this up again, because really, he’s been unequivocal about how he feels. She can’t think of a clearer message than her left standing alone at the crossroads, sun sinking below the horizon, and no one there to meet her. And here she is before him once again, asking to be rejected.

“As if that’s a trait unique to me!” He almost spits out the words, surprising her with his sudden anger. Wine makes him unpredictable, it always has. “You never fail to come up with a selfish reason for your every action. You’ve taken joy in reminding me that everything you do is for money or position, and never for me. You reject anything I offer, whether it’s respect, gratitude, affection, or help. How am I supposed to know what you want?”

“How are you supposed to -” she starts to say, incredulous, and then cuts herself off and glares at him. “I told you what I wanted. I told you years ago. I couldn’t have been clearer if I’d recited our fucking marriage vows, Athos. I asked you to be at the crossroads, to start again. And you didn’t come. You made it very clear you wanted me gone, and now you behave as if I _should have known_ you didn’t?”

She pushes him away as she releases his face, so he almost falls off the log with the force of the shove. He opens his mouth to say something, but she snaps, “I’m going to sleep now. Leave me be, Athos.”

Her pride is already smarting at her having been so emotional before him, so near pleading. She doesn’t need to hear whatever he’s likely to say next. She goes to storm off to her small tent, but pauses on the way to liberate a bottle of wine from his little collection. She needs it more than him – if anyone ever needs wine more than him, anyway.

X_X_X_X_X

The ship’s captain has kept the Spaniard safe and ready for them. He’s an old acquaintance of Treville’s, apparently, perfectly trustworthy and very patriotic, which is why he was willing to transport a captive between England and France despite the potential for blowback from the English.

“He’s still spitting fire,” he warns Milady, stroking his beard. “I’ll have one of my men gag him.”

“God forbid I hear rude language,” she agrees with perfect serenity, a smirk playing about her mouth.

Athos’s head aches, his muscles ache, his men are edgy, and he would simultaneously like this mission to be over already and hopes it never ends. As always, having her nearby manages to be torture and bliss at the same time. He has a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever he thinks of the night before, the things they said, the things they didn’t say, but Milady seems perfectly unaffected by it.

The Spaniard glares at Milady with absolute hatred. Athos looks down at him and thinks, _this man has slept with my wife_ , a thought that he’s been forced to suffer far too much in his life. At least in this case he doesn’t have to try and get past such thoughts or quiet them or create arguments for why they’re unreasonable or unfair. This man is not his friend or his king, but a foreign agent. Athos is allowed to despise him utterly. The fact that his hatred is almost solely due to jealousy is less reasonable, but no one else needs to be aware of that.

“He’s a son of a bitch,” the ship’s captain says bluntly. “Begging my lady’s pardon. In this case you _shouldn’t_ hear what he has to say, trust me. Some of the things he’s said about you – I mean, specifically about your -” He looks faintly embarrassed as he says this last part, and his meaning becomes clear.

“I was working alone, it would have been too dangerous to try and capture him any other way,” Milady says to the captain. She looks mildly frustrated with him dancing around the subject, but Athos gets the feeling that his emotions are showing on his face and she intends the statement to be for him as well.

“As you say, my lady,” the man says, steadfastly refusing to comment on this.

Milady sighs and looks at Athos, who’s smart enough not to comment either. “Well? Can we get moving now?”

X_X_X_X_X

It’s the second-last night of this little trip, and she finds she regrets that, despite the uncomfortableness of every moment spent with Athos. England is nice, polite, pastel, easy to navigate, but she’s missed France, at least a little. The food, the fashion, the language, even the people. More than that, she’s missed the excitement of doing something, of taking risks, of being on the move. Her ways are not as ruthless as they once were, but she still feels the thrill of a successful scheme, a well-executed plan, a lucrative score. She’s missed that feeling.

And him. She’s missed him. Desperately.

But she has no illusions about what her life would have been, if she stayed, if he had wanted her to stay, if he’d asked her to. She would have had nothing but him, and that’s assuming she would even have really had him, which is far from certain. But then, she went to England with next to nothing as well, the truth is it’s not about what she would have lacked in Paris – it’s about the weight of her bloody past there.

The Parisian underworld is full of people who want her or want to kill her, she’s known at the palace and among the nobility as the King’s shamed and rejected former mistress, there’s evidence against her in the Cardinal’s records and other places, and everyone else in Athos’s life hates her and distrusts her. There was no fresh start for her in Paris. There was no work for her in Paris either, none but the kind she’d left or the kind done on your knees. She would have been living on the edge of poverty and degradation, drowning in that very specific kind of fear, or dependent on him, and drowning even more. Sooner or later, something would have happened, some straw would have broken the camel’s back. It hardly matters who or what – an argument, a bad day, a blackmail attempt, a moment of terror or weakness, a temptation too great to resist, a threat – the important thing is she would have been back to being that creature, the one who lied and cheated and killed without hesitation. Places from your past can drag you back to who you were then.

Sometimes, people from your past can do that too.

X_X_X_X_X

Athos has the captive’s gag off for the moment, forcing some water down his throat, but he spits it out when he sees Milady approach and lets loose a series of hoarse, bitter expletives. “Filthy foreign whore” is among the nicer of them. When he segues into descriptions of the horrific, bloody things he’d like to do to her in revenge for her betrayal, Athos punches him efficiently in the face, knocking him out immediately.

She’s impressed by the accuracy of it. “I thought your orders were to deliver him unharmed.”

“Alive,” Athos corrects. He looks exhausted. “And that was for his own protection.”

“As if I haven’t heard worse before. I wasn’t going to kill him.”

“I didn’t say you were.” He casts a dark glare at the man’s unconscious form. 

“Defending my honour?” she says lightly, touched in spite of herself.

She feels nerves and hope humming through her together again, the way she always does when he shows some sign of concern or protectiveness. Just as Paris will always drag to the front the version of her that was the Cardinal’s creature, Athos showing care for her draws forward Anne de Breuil, the sweet, hopeful, open part of her. She always tries to hide it, tries to cover it up with sarcasm or cruelty, but she doesn’t always manage it.

“I wasn’t aware you thought I had any honour to defend,” she says now, trying to keep him at a distance. “Normally you’re happy enough to go along with any insults thrown at me.”

“What?” He looks so honestly annoyed at the idea she almost smiles. “He has no right to talk to you like that.”

“I did seduce him and knock him out instead of capturing him in some more _honourable_ way,” she says, and sees Athos grimace in response. “Time was you’d consider me entirely at fault, and his every insult justified.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Athos says. He looks older than he used to, tired. What have the past three years done to him? He’s not destroyed, but he’s undeniably worn. “I won’t blame you for the actions you take to keep yourself safe.”

“That hasn’t always been your view.”

“I don’t like it when you – when you trade on your _natural talents_ , as you call them,” he says haltingly, face flushing slightly. For Athos, this probably counts as an extreme admission of jealousy. “That can hardly be a surprise to you.”

“You resigned any claim on me a long time ago,” she says, crossing her arms, pushing him, challenging him. “Which of my talents I choose to employ has nothing to do with you.”

He doesn’t meet the challenge. “If that’s the way you prefer to see it.”

X_X_X_X_X

The next day causes Milady to change her position on French weather – apparently it can rain just as much here as in England. Perhaps she brought it with her somehow.

The weather worsens so much that by midday the horses can’t continue. They set up the tents, wet and miserable, every single person wishing they could just go to one of the inns. Everyone hides inside the tents to wait it out, although it’s far too early to sleep. After a little while, Milady gets bored by herself, bored of being cold and uncomfortable in her own tent, and goes in search of company.

“You can take that look off your face, it’s only one extra night,” Milady says when she crawls inside his tent and sees Athos’s expression. The prisoner’s in one of the other tents right now, by the look of it, probably even more miserable than the rest of them. “I’ll be back in England soon enough.”

“That’s not – why do you always decide I have to be thinking the worst possible thing?” he asks, frustrated. He tugs the cork out of a bottle of wine with his teeth. “I was simply concerned. You’re soaked through. It can’t be comfortable.”

“When are dresses ever comfortable?” She accepts the bottle as her due when he offers it. Maybe it’ll help warm her up again, stop her shivering. “And for that matter, since when do you worry about me? Since when do you care?”

“I’ve always worried about you. The only question is whether I’m worried about what will happen to you or just worried about what you’ll _do_.”

That surprises her into a laugh. “Was it a relief to have me in England? Tell the truth, really. Was your life easier without me here?”

“It was emptier,” he says, and the mood changes. Suddenly, it’s serious, his brutal honesty forcing the air out of her lungs, the amusement out of her tone. “It’s always emptier when you’re gone.”

She clears her throat. It feels odd, now, like there are words choking it, angry words, heartbroken words, meaningful words. Instead, she lets out the disbelieving ones. “Oh, don’t exaggerate. From the look of it, you’ve done just fine. It’s not like it’s the first time you’ve gone years without me.”

“And I dealt so well with it before?” he asks, looking at her in that torn-open way that makes her automatically shy back, unnerved by the raw emotion. “It destroyed me.”

When Athos is like this he’s dangerous to her, and she doesn’t mean physically. She always tries to redirect the conversation, tries to make it lighter or angrier or more business-like, because that’s the most she can deal with. He seems to do the same when the situation is reversed. After all, it’s when they’re both emotional that everything starts to spin out of control, when the current gets too wild and pulls them both under, drowning them in what they were and what they are and, sometimes, what they could be. 

She’s silent, desperately searching for something to say, but it’s as if he’s sucked the breath from her lungs with his honesty.

He presses his advantage, moves closer to her. His gaze scorches her, the only warm thing in this very cold world. “I don’t know how to live in a world that doesn’t have you in it. I never have. Every time you leave, you take most of me with you.” 

“Every time I _leave_?” she says, old anger resurfacing. She clings to it like a lifeline, shifting forward, balling a hand in his shirt. The two of them are kneeling so close, nearly nose-to-nose, and he burns with such feverish intensity that she’s surprised the rain isn’t steaming off her wet, heavy dress. “Oh, Athos, what a lovely way to avoid taking responsibility. I never _left_ you, not once. You killed me. You exiled me. And then you abandoned me.”

“I abandoned you? You left for England. _You_ abandoned _me_!” It sounds such a childish thing to say – no, you! – but his raw grief and fury makes it strike home. He closes his eyes for a moment, as if trying to regain control, leaning back from her. When he speaks again, his voice is steadier. “You told me I would never see you again, but I hoped you were lying.”

“You were hoping I _lied_?” Her lips curl into a sour smile. She lets her fury fire her up further, keep her warm despite her soaked clothes, because surely it’s better to get warmth from that than from him. She’s been angry at him for years now, for one reason or another, but this specific anger has been there ever since she waited, and waited, and waited, but not a single horse was his, and she was on her own once more. “At least tell me you can see the humour in _that_ , Athos.”

“If this is a joke, it’s on me, so you can hardly expect me to enjoy it,” he bites out. He’s so close to her that she can see every fleck of colour in his eyes, and suddenly it seems an unsafe place to be, but when has she ever cared about that? “You threw an ultimatum at me and ran. You married someone else, you made a new life, and you never thought twice about what you left behind. And now you’re back here, accusing me of not caring?”

“You _didn’t_ care what happened to me,” she throws the truth (as she sees it) at him, wanting it to strike him, wanting it to hurt. It hurts her, after all. Despite her anger, she doesn’t move back, still glaring up at him. “You abandoned me at the crossroads.”

He fumbles at his sleeve, glancing away from her as he does, and she treats it like a surrender. But then he’s glaring at her again, returning to the argument, every bit as fierce.

“No.” He pushes his own truth back at her, and with it a balled-up glove against her stomach. She catches it before it falls and studies it for a moment, uncomprehending. “No, I didn’t.”

“You came,” she breathes after a long minute, staring at it, almost unable to process. Her heart seems to be beating too hard. It’s painful. The glove is relatively clean, not a trace of mud or blood on it, which is very impressive if he’s been carrying it on him all this time. She instinctively knows he won’t have washed it. She looks back up at him. “Would you have come with me? To England?”

“I… I don’t know. Maybe. No. No, I wouldn’t have. My duty is here.”

Her hope dies. No, of course, why would he ever choose her over anything? “Then why?”

“I suppose to see you again.”

“Well, then,” she says, as dismissively as she can. She shifts just a little closer to him despite her assumed dismissiveness, balling up the glove in her hand. It’s still warm from when he held it. He’s always warm. She’s cold. But he is so very, very warm. She’s been cold for three years, and the warmth is hard to resist, when he’s right there, so very close. “You’ve seen me again, Athos.”

He doesn’t have a response to that, but the way he’s looking at her makes one float into her mind anyway: _not all of you_. 

He would never say it. He might not even think it. But suddenly, she’s thinking it, and she lets her hands go to the still-damp ties of her gown. He watched in silence as she loosens them, as she starts to peel off her layers. Skin appears as she drops each piece to the ground. 

She’s cold, clammy, shivering. But she could be warm.

His gaze is hot on her skin.

“You’ve seen me again,” she repeats in a low murmur. “Did you want to touch me again as well?”

His lips land on hers in answer.

X_X_X_X_X

The rain stops overnight, so that in the morning they wake to a blue sky again, only the slick mud on the ground and the dripping trees proving that there ever was a tempest at all.

His men heard them: he’s sure of that, by the glances thrown his way. Some are disapproving – they know who Milady de Winter is, at least in one sense, know her as an occasional enemy of the Musketeers and as the King’s former mistress. Others are impressed. Most of them have assumed he’s interested in nothing but the bottle, or perhaps in one of his friends (he’s heard the rumours), or that he’s dedicated his body as well as his life purely to the service of France.

Normally, he’d be embarrassed, whether on his own behalf or hers. Right now it’s curiously comforting, because their stares are the only proof he has that he didn’t imagine it. Not that his imagination’s ever been vivid enough to do her justice – the sound of her, the feel of her, the way she moves. But she’s distant enough that otherwise he’d wonder.

“Our captive doesn’t seem to like France as much as England,” she tells him at midday when they stop to eat, a slight smile playing across her face as she watches the man swear and struggle as a Musketeer feeds him. “I’ll admit the weather hasn’t been as favourable as it could be, but you’d think he’d at least appreciate our food more. Unless knowing what’s waiting for him in Paris is ruining his appetite.”

It’s the first thing she’s said to him all day.

“And what’s waiting for you in London?” he asks quietly but bluntly. He grips the bottle in his hand so tightly his fingers ache, waiting for some sign that she intends to stay, that somehow the glove changed something, fixed something. Praying for it.

“Respect,” she says instead, tilting her head back so she stares at the sky instead of him. “Security, at least to a point. A good life.”

“You could have that here.”

“And yet, I never did.” Her face shows nothing at all. “Besides, English men are so eager and willing. I’d miss them dreadfully.”

He could shake her now, he’s certain of it, shake her out of her indifference, out of her distance, her calm, her deliberate cruelty. He doesn’t. “French men are no longer to your taste?”

“Well,” she says, and her eyes drop to the bottle in his hand, and she looks almost sorry for him. “We all have our weaknesses, don’t we? The important thing is that they don’t control us.”

X_X_X_X_X

It takes a while for the thought to cross his mind. “You didn’t say happiness. You didn’t say that you’re happy in England.”

“No, I didn’t. Are you happy _here_ , Athos?”

He has no answer.

“I don’t think happiness is on the cards for either of us,” she says, and there it is again, that almost pitying tone, like she’s worked out something he never will. “We certainly brought each other little enough of it.”

He has an answer to that – that of course she made him happy, that once upon a time she made him happier than he’d ever been and happier than he ever can be again. But if he says it then he opens himself up to her response, and it will be brutal, and he never has liked speaking of what he did. Of the decision he made in reckless fury, not to believe his wife, not to help her, instead to hang her. The decision that led to the death of not just Anne de Breuil but of any hope of happiness for either of them.

Except, of course, for the little moments of happiness, like the night before, when she was in his arms.

X_X_X_X_X

When he enters her tent, she has it out, staring at it like it could answer her questions, like it could tell her what to think, what to do now. She’s too slow to hide it and he sees. She curses herself for her slowness as much as for her stupidity and sentiment.

“The glove,” he says in surprise.

She shrugs, tries to reassemble her armour. It feels like he caught her in something much more meaningful than staring at an old accessory, and she’s left on edge, awkward, and trying to hide that. “It’s just a glove. If you want it back, take it.”

“What I want is to talk to you,” he says, ignoring this, eyes pleading. “That’s what I wanted at the crossroads as well. To talk.”

She laughs a little wildly, because when have words ever meant anything to the two of them? Their words have never matched their actions, or their feelings. She’s done so well, for three years she’s done so well, and yet here she is again. In England, he intruded on her thoughts: here, he intrudes on her privacy, her serenity, her certainty. “You have. Now leave.”

“Did the other night mean nothing?” he says, looking almost despairing.

She doesn’t know how to answer that. In one way it meant a lot – it always means a lot to her, to have him there, even just for a night. But in another way, it changes nothing at all. There’s no life for her in Paris anymore and he will never leave it. “Why are you here again, Athos? Why do you keep bringing us back to this point?”

One short step, and he’s nearly against her. Trembling fingers touch her cheek. She closes her eyes, steps in, lets their bodies press against each other. His body is shaking, or perhaps hers is, and their hearts beat in time. She hooks her hands around the back of his neck to keep him close, giving him no space to get away, not that he wants any. The glove falls to the ground, already forgotten.

“Let me show you why,” he says.

And that’s how they spend their very last night on the road.

X_X_X_X_X

“Are we married?” he whispers to her in the middle of the night, vulnerable, placing far too much weight on a question that the end of the day means nothing at all. And here they are, at the end of the day, and yes, it means nothing.

Does he mean legally, morally, religiously, emotionally, what? She’s not an attorney or a priest, and it’s not even a clear enough question for her to know who she would ask or how she would explain it to them. A woman who died a decade ago was legally married to a man who disappeared a decade ago, and they happen to resemble those unfortunates. That’s all she knows.

She’s not sure what she’s ever done to make him believe the sanctity of marriage is somehow important to her. The ceremony carries no more weight than words, the union itself is only an ideal that’s all too easy to betray. She valued what they had above anything in the world, but that had nothing to do with God or law, just with them and their love. Marriage as a concept in general is meaningless to her except in what it gets her. She’s married again since him. Someday she probably will again, if it suits her purposes. She will have as many lovers and husbands as she chooses throughout her life.

However, he’s the only one she’s ever considered herself bound to in any way, or ever will, and perhaps that’s the answer he’s looking for.

She keeps her eyes closed and doesn’t give it to him. 

“Please,” he persists. “Are you still my wife?”

“More than I’m anyone else’s, I suppose,” she replies eventually, and knows that’s not the answer he wanted.

X_X_X_X_X

She weighs the purse in her hand, but doesn’t bother to count it. They all know Treville would never pay her a livre less than he promised. Judging by the size of it, Athos thinks she’s done well from this – but given the value of the information the envoy can give them, and the risk to her own life in England if her part in this is discovered, that’s only right.

“Are you leaving now?” Treville asks. “If France has further need of you -”

“Then France knows where to find me, provided France can pay,” she says. She doesn’t look at Athos. 

“I could use another agent in England, and you would be a valuable one,” Treville says in a resigned tone, clearly aware that valuable in this case also means expensive. “I think this has proved that. I realize it’s unsafe -”

“I can take care of my own safety.” She shrugs, as if the risk of being a lone spy in a country often hostile to France is hardly a factor in her decision-making. “It’s worth considering. I can’t promise loyalty, but if I’m offered employment by another, I’ll be sure to give you a chance to match their price. London has a great many untapped sources of information, and a woman can go places a man cannot.”

“So you plan to remain in London for the near future, then?” Treville asks. An entirely practical question.

“For a time, at least. Even besides the intelligence available there, I’ve found the English court as good a place to be as any.”

“As good as any?” Athos asks her in a low tone, an entirely impractical question. 

“And better than most,” she says lightly, and just like that, he is dismissed.

The talk turns to what Treville’s willing to offer for the rumours and secrets of the English court, and from there to other places Milady could go both in England and outside it, other things she might be able to find out, if she was so inclined, if Treville’s willing to offer enough in return. There are courts, brothels and army camps all over Europe with sources just waiting for an offer of coin or a friendly listener, a hundred opportunities that Milady de Winter (or one of her aliases) would be the ideal agent to take advantage of. All of them dangerous. All of them very far from Paris.

He knows his face is a twisted mask of grief and pain by the time she exits the office, and Treville looks at him with concern. “I’m not hiring her to kill, Athos, or even to seduce. Simply to listen and talk, to trade money for secrets, to slip into a few places and back out again. Perhaps a little unethical, but not -”

“I know that.”

Treville sighs. “There’s more than one way to fight a war. And we need every bit of information we can get.”

“I know that too.” And he does, now, since he’s been involved in using the information they get and been witness to the disasters which happen when they don’t know quite enough. But how can anyone expect him to be practical and calculating in the face of his wife heading out alone, recklessly, into danger like that, wandering some of the worst parts of Europe on her own with only her knives and her wits? How can anyone expect him to be happy at the idea of her leaving at all?

X_X_X_X_X

He catches up with her before she can get out of the Louvre yet again, but if she were honest, she would admit she dawdled for precisely that reason. It’s a blessing she’s not honest, really: honesty stings her, whether his or her own. So why did she wait?

“Doesn’t it mean anything that I kept the glove close to my heart?” It goes unspoken that he kept her there as well.

“Of course you kept it.” She tries to muster her anger once more, and this time she fails. Her voice is soft and almost sad when she says, “I think you find it easier to love me when I’m not here. You can stare at trinkets and think tragic thoughts about your doomed love, without having to deal with the reality of us.”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it? You say you came to the crossroads, fine, I believe you. But it was already near sundown when I left. You could have been there hours before.”

“I was thinking.” It’s as if he’s used up all of his words, and he has nothing left but these short, meaningless statements.

“Oh? And now you’ve thought. Tell me, what conclusion have you come to? What _were_ you going to say to me at the crossroads, Athos, when you came there ‘to talk’?” She keeps her hope out of her voice and expression, and does her best to keep it out of her heart as well. She knows where hope leads. To loose hair and sweet kisses, to laughter and openness, to the warmth of his body against hers, and then, eventually: to a noose, to an empty road, to nothing but pain. He would never have gone with her. 

“I don’t know,” he admits. 

“Then tell me when you do,” she says, and turns to leave him.

How much can he love her if he’s so averse to even saying the words? How much can he love her if he’s never willing to give up anything to be with her? What did he plan to say at the crossroads that he thinks would have fixed his lateness, his reluctance to go to England with her, his refusal to even try and start anew? Since she leaves for Le Havre again tonight, it hardly matters. He’ll never come up with an answer by then, not when he’s had years and still can’t figure it out. 

But then, it’s for the best if she never does hear what he might have told her at the crossroads. It would be better if she’d never even found out that he’d come, she thinks. It will lead nowhere good. At the end of the day, he has his brothers, his Musketeers, his duty, his honour; and at the end of the day, she has nothing but herself and whatever coin she can scrape.

X_X_X_X_X

He doesn’t find her with Treville, or at the lodging she was staying at overnight. Instead, he finds her at a stable nearby. She pauses in her work for a second to stare at his pauldron, at the forget-me-nots it’s patterned with. But then she shakes her head and turns away, dismissing it like she’s dismissed everything else.

“What are you doing?” he asks, staring at her as she quickly and efficiently saddles the horse.

“What do you think? I’m leaving. That’s what you normally dream of me doing. It’s only unusual in that I haven’t waited for a threat, a bribe, or a rejection this time,” she says, voice sharp but quiet. She turns back to tighten the girth, ignoring him.

“I think I’ve made it clear that that’s the last thing I want. Where are you going? Back to England again?” He tries to keep the pain out of his voice.

She nods, still not facing him. “It’s a good place to start, at least. I have my jointure, and what Treville’s willing to pay for any information I unearth, and the court is full of people eager to be kind to an attractive widow. I’ll be fine on my own.”

“But _I won’t be_.” The words come out without him meaning to say them, fear turning his voice harsh. He clears his throat, tries to gentle his tone. “I mean – We need you here.” There it is, his first lie, and an obvious one when Treville probably needs her out there far more. He amends it, “ _I_ need you here.”

“You never have before,” she says, still just as sharp. Now, finally, she turns to him. “You’ve done everything short of physically throwing me out of your city in the past. Oh, when I’m dead the guilt chokes you, no doubt, but you can easily survive if I’m merely absent. You managed fine without me when you exiled me, didn’t you? You threw away my locket and pronounced yourself free of me. Just do that again.”

“I thought about you every minute, every day. I missed you. I wondered where you were. I was thrilled to see you again in that forest. I tried not to be, but I was. Just as I was thrilled to see you in Treville’s office a week ago.” The words are bald and brutal, and he sees her shrink back from them, from the meaning there. Encouraged, he continues, “I’ve never been free of you, and you know it. You’ve always known we were bound. Until death, you told me that, you promised me that.”

Now her eyes are glassy as she looks up at him. “Yes? Well, we’ve both been dead before. And I’ve never kept a promise yet.” 

“It was the same these past three years,” he says, pushing past this. “Every day. Every minute. I’ve spent more of our marriage missing you and mourning you than I have with you. I can’t do it again, Anne. Please, don’t make me.”

“Because it’s all about you?” she snaps, but her tone carries more desperation than anger now. Her eyes fall to his pauldron again, and she reaches out and traces one of the delicately embossed forget-me-nots with the tips of her fingers. Despite her harsh tone, her touch is light. “Trinkets and symbols, symbols and trinkets. You can wear my favour in as many ways as you like, Athos, but don’t pretend I’m what you’re fighting for. Don’t pretend that love is tragic keepsakes and idealized memories.”

“I came up with an answer,” he says abruptly. “To what you asked before. What I would have said.”

“And what is it, Athos? What would you have said at the crossroads?”

“The same thing I’m saying now: stay.”

She laughs, the sound harsh with pain. “Yes, of course you’d say that. Because the demands of your duty are more important than I am – if duty requires a hanging I must hang, and if duty requires you be in France than I must give up the new life I needed to make elsewhere, the one I couldn’t have here. Your needs come first, Athos, always. And mine…” She shakes her head, words failing her. 

He stares at her, at her green eyes bright with hurt, at the weary expression on her face, at the way she crosses her arms as if she’s using them to hold herself together: and all of a sudden, he’s done. Not with her, never with her. But he’s done with this.

No glory, no money, no love, just honour. They’d said that once. And perhaps honour has to be enough if it is the only thing you can get, but all of his brothers have sought more than that, and to some extent have found it. He’s given a decade of his life to the Musketeers, now. They saved him when he had nothing but his grief, and he owes them, and he owes Treville and his brothers, but surely, _surely_ by now that debt is paid. Surely he can choose something else.

“I will resign my commission,” he says. The words are unexpectedly freeing. He’d thought they would hurt. Instead, it’s like he can breathe again, for the first time in a long time.

“You will… wait. What?”

“If you want me to,” he amends, words suddenly bubbling over, mind fizzing with plans, possibilities and hopes. For the first time in a decade, he feels young. “I could accompany you to England. Or Venice, or Italy, or New France, or wherever else you like – I mean, perhaps not Spain, but anywhere else. I have savings -” Captains are paid quite well, and apart from wine, he buys little. “- and I can get work as a soldier anywhere. Or training other soldiers. Name the place.”

“Name… the place?” she echoes, looking stunned, and he feels a surge of fear.

“You could even continue your work for Treville with me as a body-guard, if you wanted,” he says. He knows he sounds desperate, but he can’t tell what she’s thinking, if maybe this offer is too little, too late. He struggles to make himself sound useful to her, worth the effort, as if that will somehow tip the scale. “I’m no spy, but I could certainly provide back-up and protection. And just as a woman can go places a man cannot, a soldier can go places a lady can’t. If you taught me what to listen for, what to say -”

She gives him a look of total disbelief. “Athos, you hate my work. And your duty is here, as you keep telling me. You would resent me for taking you from it -”

“I have resented my duty for a long time now, for taking you from me,” he says. He hadn’t even realized how true that was until he said it. “I have resented the war, the Musketeers, the whole of France, even Treville and my brothers. I want to leave. I want a new start with you. I know I’m three years too late in realizing that, but it’s what I want more than anything.” His voice nearly breaks as he says it.

“You’re serious,” she breathes, looking at him in dawning amazement.

“Completely.”

“Now. _Now_ you want to go with me to England.” She looks suddenly on the verge of tears.

“Yes.” He wanted to then as well, but he made a choice and he chose duty, and now he thinks he chose wrongly. “Or anywhere else.”

“And the war?”

“There’s more than one way to fight a war. If I can help protect you as you get information for France, I’ll consider myself to be contributing.” He finds her safety matters more than the war to him. Thinking of his brothers fighting without him saddens him, but they’ve been doing that since he was promoted. He adds softly, “But if you decide you would rather not work for Treville – if you want nothing to do with France, if you’d rather go back to the English court forever, or even if you want to find a cottage somewhere in the middle of nowhere and raise goats – I would choose to come with you anyway. I think the war will continue on without me. So will France.”

Now, a smile lights up her tearful face. “Goats. Really, goats? Athos, have you ever milked a goat?”

“I’ve never milked anything,” he admits, not trying to undo the rather bizarre turn this conversation has taken. At least it seems to be making Anne happier.

“No, nor have I.” She gives a little hiccup of laughter. “Goats. No, I don’t think we could excel at that. But the rest – yes. I think we could do that. Work for Treville, that is, assuming he’s still willing to pay once he realizes I’ve seduced you away from his employ. You’ll never be a spy, Athos, but I think as a bodyguard you’d be exemplary.”

“I can learn to be a good bodyguard,” he says. He can feel the warmth of relief flooding him, and finds he is also on the verge of tears as she looks up at him. He reaches out for her just as she moves to press against him. His hand comes up to cup her cheek, the skin so soft and silky it feels unreal against his rough callouses. His voice is just as rough as he adds, “The situations you get into, you need a bodyguard more than a husband anyway.”

“I need both,” she says, and kisses him very lightly. His eyes fall closed as their lips meet, and he can’t remember how he lived so long without this pure happiness flooding him. When she pulls away, all trace of tears are gone from her expression, replaced by the same joy that’s overtaken him. “And I daresay you could relearn all the necessary skills to be good at being a husband as well.”

X_X_X_X_X

The Minister of War gets up early every morning, a habit he’s never lost from his days as a soldier. Luckily, the servants get up even earlier, so a warm fire normally greets him when he enters his office, instead of chilly morning air.

Today, however, it’s not the only thing that greets him. The usual chaos of his desk has been pushed to the side, and in the newly-bare center there are two letters sitting there for him. How did someone get into his office to leave them? He decides he’ll question that later. For now, he reaches for the first, thinner envelope, and opens it.

With a frown, he skims the short missive. Milady de Winter helpfully informs him that a package will be arriving for him shortly. Inside, there will be a list of locations the information she finds will be dropped at, the ciphers for the codes she will use to convey this intelligence, sparing details on the places she plans to go after the English court, ways to get her fee and any instructions to her safely, and other such things. The missive ends with an insincere and slightly mocking apology for theft, but he has no idea what she’s stolen – he makes a mental note to check both his wine cabinet and his coin-purse, just in case, and prays it’s nothing more serious than that. But then, she’d hardly alert him of it if she’d stolen the crown jewels or something.

Then he opens the letter below. It’s a thick envelope, but only the first wedge of papers is addressed to him, and he freezes as he recognizes the handwriting.

It is considerably longer and more emotional than Milady’s message. It’s a heartfelt farewell and an apology as much as a resignation, an expression of gratitude for years of friendship and respect, and a request to pass the other letters inside onto their intended recipients with his apology for not waiting and giving them a more proper goodbye. The second-last paragraph contains an assurance that he will see them all again, and that if they need his help or his wife’s in future, to send a message as soon as they can to one of the locations his wife will indicate in her communication.

Treville leans back in his chair, processing this. For a minute, he feels shocked, saddened by the news, angered, even a little betrayed. Then, with a long sigh, he looks back at the last line again, one so uncharacteristic for Athos that it can only be inspired by overwhelming emotion, and lets those feelings go.

_I can only hope that after all these years of service, you will not begrudge me for seizing my one remaining chance at real happiness, despite any inconvenience and distress it may cause._

And how _can_ he begrudge that, really?


End file.
